


Favourite place in the world

by Noducksinpond



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Barry has zero chill around Iris, But that´s hardly a newsflash, Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, bowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 17:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3659574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noducksinpond/pseuds/Noducksinpond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It´s not exactly the first time Barry´s asked her if she wants to go bowling, but it´s the first time it´s not platonic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Favourite place in the world

**Author's Note:**

> So I have felt like I needed to write some Westallen fic for a good long while now, and finally my muse struck me with this, so I hope you enjoy.

It´s not exactly the first time Barry´s asked her if she wants to go bowling, they´d gone bowling with Joe when they were kids, gone bowling in High school when they had nothing else to do, and gone bowling whenever they´d gotten to see each other in college. They had even gone bowling late at night when her first kind of serious boyfriend Rick had cheated on her and she had just needed to do something that wasn´t thinking about his nasty ass. It just becomes their thing.

But this time, it is notably not platonic, which is probably also why Barry looks like he is about to faint, when he picks her up at her apartment. It really shouldn´t be as funny as it is, when he starts babbling about Captain Singh´s secret sandwich obsession. “You´re cute,” she informs him after the first 5 minutes in the taxi, and presses a kiss against his cheek, and he instantly goes completely silent, and she has to stop herself from laughing at him, because she is pretty sure her laughing wouldn´t help him calm the least bit down. Not the way it´s going anyway.

Luckily for Barry the taxi ride is a short one, and they get out of their taxi at the same place they always go to, well minus the times in college. This place, despite the fact that it seemed to be permanently stuck in the 80s, was probably her favourite place in the world. She´d probably be turning up here to bowl until she was 85 years old. Even her dad had called her a little overly passionate about bowling, but hey, she liked it here.

“Usual nachos?” Barry asked, as they stepped through the doors. He is fiddling with his hands, and clearly looks like he doesn´t know what to do with them. If she had been a date with anyone other than Barry, she would have thought he was overdoing the nerves a little bit, but this was Barry. And even though this was definitely cute in his case, she was still going to bring it up in the future. It was simply too good not to do that. Not that she wasn´t a tiny bit nervous too, if this didn´t work out, things wouldn´t just go back to the same, but it was very clear which one of them, who was currently having a breakdown.

“It´s not bowling without them,” she said, and he grinned nervously at her. They stood still for a couple of seconds, neither of them moving. She put a hand on his shoulder, and he practically jumped in shock. “Bear, you can relax I´m not going to eat you.”

“I know that,” Barry argued, but his voice was shaking, so really Iris was completely unconvinced. Iris hooked her arm with his, and they headed to the bar to get previously mentioned nachos.

…

“Ready to lose Barry?” she asked, as she smirked at him, about to throw her first ball. Barry took another couple of the nachos from the huge plate, which was practically bigger than the table it was standing on. Bowling was the only place where nachos were acceptable for Iris, because hey, she had a big enough snacking problem as it was.

“You wish,” he said quietly and Iris couldn´t help smiling, before she turned on her heel, so she faced the bowling lane again, and threw the ball. She couldn´t help the wide grin on her face, when she hit 9 out of 10 pins. She threw up her fist a little, and spun around to smile at Barry.

“Told you,” she said with a wide smile, and he grinned at her a little awkwardly.

“You have to hit the last one too,” he blurted out quickly, and cringed at what he said. Iris repressed the want to laugh quietly.

“Oh don´t worry,” she said and bopped his nose with her finger. “I will.”

And she does, and he smiles approvingly at her. Her grin only gets wider.

About an hour later, she is pretty sure she has never been smiling so much. Her lead is enormous, and if possible, Barry has practically dug himself down in the red leather sofa. She can´t exactly complain about his ruffled hair though, it only makes him cuter as a matter of fact. Because it turns out that Barry is terrible at bowling, when he is nervous, but terrible in an adorably cute way, because he isn´t usually this terrible. In fact, they´re pretty equally matched, that´s kind of the result when every time you bowl you bring the other. He always looks a little shocked, when he only hits a couple of pins at most. Iris had joked he probably needed the bumpers, and to that Barry had just blushed and mumbled something incoherent.

“I think I may have psychic powers,” Iris says with a wide grin as she pops down on the sofa next to him.

“I can still win,” Barry attempts to argue, and Iris just looked at him. Then he buried his face in his hands and sighed heavily.

“Relax,” she said and nuzzled her head against his shoulder. “You still make an adorable sore loser.”

“Yeah?” he asked below his breath, and lifted his head slightly to look down at her. She resisted the urge to punch his shoulder. Of course he did, you´d think he would have noticed the fact that he was acting absolutely adorable, but on the other hand he might be too busy being embarrassed.

“Yeah,” she replied just as quietly, and closed the space between them, as she leant in to kiss him. This wasn´t the first time they´d kissed. But the other times they had done this, it had been life or death, Barry is about to go save the world kind of kisses, the sort of make out with me as if your life depends on it kind of kisses. This was different, not worse different or better different, just different. It was nice too, in that way where something was for once completely ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. She sighed deeply, as he sucked on her bottom lip. “Now,” she said and slowly and definitely reluctantly pulled away from him. “Get up and make this a little bit less embarrassing.”

The fact that he almost stumbles over his own legs, really cement the point that he has no chance whatsoever of making it less embarrassing, and he doesn´t.

Later he attempts to convince her that he doesn´t mind losing, if she is going to keep being that cute every time she wins, but Iris is not entirely sure she believes him. In fact, she is pretty sure, he won´t exactly be complaining if he wins next time they go bowling. But instead of arguing with him, Iris just leans in to kiss him again and settle down on the sofa in front of the TV.

* * *

 

_4 years later_

“NO BARRY!” Cisco said for the third time, and he clearly handed the phone over to Caitlin. There was something shuffling on their end of the line, and Barry swallowed hard. He had about 10 minutes before he had to go pick Iris up at Picture News. They were going to the bowling alley.

“Didn´t you say, you wanted to propose to Iris?” Caitlin asked slightly confused, but definitely also with a hint of the same annoyance as Cisco, which really wasn´t helpful regardless of which of the scientists were dished it out to him. He was both glad and regretting with every single bone in his body that he´d told them his plans.

“Yes,” Barry admitted a little too frantically, his eyes flickered to the clock on the wall, 9 minutes. “Of course, yes. But I just don´t- I´m not sure I can do it without moral support.” He kind of wanted to be engulfed in a black hole at that exact moment, because he was 31 years old and couldn´t figure out how the hell to propose to his girlfriend. But on the other hand this was Iris! He had every right to panic.

“Man up,” Caitlin snapped curtly, followed by some rustling on the other end of the line again as Cisco grabbed the phone from her.

“Can´t you guys just put the phone on speaker?” Barry said desperately, pretty sure his voice was an octave higher than usual. But both of his friends ignored him, as Cisco had grabbed the phone again. Barry was practically walking in circles at this point, and he was pretty sure if Iris didn´t finish at work soon, he was actually going to have a heart attack.

“What Caitlin means, is that we love you and support you as friends, but dude seriously you can propose to your girlfriend on your own,” Cisco elaborated. “I mean, come on! Iris loves you a lot, you love Iris a lot, and she´s been dating you for 4 years.”

“You´ve planned this out too,” Caitlin added, because apparently the two of them had finally understood that you could put phones on speaker. “It´s going to be cute and adorable and your babies are going to be even cuter. Now go get her!”

“Seriously man, I´m hanging up now,” Cisco warned him.

“Cisco-“ Barry began, but the other had already hung up, before Barry could get a chance he argued. He let out a deep sigh, his heart thundering away quicker in his chest than he could probably run, and he headed out the door realizing he had about 2 minutes before he was late to pick her up. “Okay then,” he muttered quietly. “Okay then.”

He might have said it another time or two, before he actually leaves the apartment.

…

He had meant to do it, when they´d shared nachos and enormous sodas before they´d gone down to the lanes. Then it had dawned on him that it wouldn´t be an amazing idea if she said no, because you know, then bowling would probably be a little awkward, if not completely unbearable. So he hadn´t.

Then, he had briefly thought it would be a good idea to offer to help tie her shoelaces and then show her the ring, but he couldn´t find a pair of shoes that fit him, and when he had, Iris was already wearing hers. In fact, it had ended up being Iris helping him, because his hands were shaking and he couldn´t properly focus on anything but the ring buried deep in his coat pocket.

“What´s wrong?” she asked teasingly, as she leant in to kiss him, but she paused half an inch from his face. “Afraid I´ll end up being the absolute champion of this again?”

“No,” he coughed out, which was true because that was probably one of the last things on his mind, even if bowling was no joke between the two of them. They were pretty equal in bowling skills too. But Iris just laughed, and closed the last inch of space between them. His hands cupped her face, and he decided again that this wouldn´t the right timing and it would just be weird. So he didn´t do it.

His next plan is to do it, once they´ve finished playing. He quickly resolves, he can do that no problem. Iris will probably end up winning anyway, considering he´s practically a nervous wreck. Proposing to her would just kind of be the icing on the cake right?

Well, he doesn´t end up doing it then either, and on top of that they end up in a scenario where he played so horribly and Iris won by such a long shot that by the time they finish the game, Iris crosses her arms and looks at him: “Why are you nervous?”

“I´m not nervous Iris!” he replied in a way that definitely did nothing to prove his point. Iris just smiled a smile that was a little too knowingly for his personal taste.

“Okay. Whenever you´re ready to tell me what bothers you, do that okay?” she put her hands on his shoulders and looked up at him, something in her eyes made him melt inside, cheesy saying? Sure, but that was what he felt.

“Yeah,” he said, and his voice very embarrassingly cracked. Iris laughed quietly and leant into him, as they headed home.

…

“So,” Iris began as she hung up her jacket, back at the apartment, she twisted around to face him. “Wanna check the TV? There´s probably some kind of movie on.”

“Iris,” he tried a little too quiet, instantly wincing, and then tried again a bit louder: “Iris, I love you.”

“Aw, Bear I love you too,” Iris said softly, and brushed her hand over his cheek. For a moment, it was tempting to just get lost in this, to just kiss her and forget the ring in his pocket. That way, things could continue the way they were, nice, easy and peaceful. But he wanted this, he wanted to marry her, he wanted to spend every day of the rest of his life with her.

“No,” he said quietly and put a hand over her hand. Iris looked a little surprised for a second, so he hurried to say something. “That´s not- That´s not the only thing. Iris, I don´t- I don´t know where I´d be without you, I don´t know how my life would be without you. But I imagine it would be a lot more boring and colourless than what- Anyway, I realized I don´t want to find out, not now, not ever.”

He took a couple of steps away from her, and dug his hand into his pocket finding the small black box. He wasn´t entirely sure how he managed to get down on one knee, because it felt like his legs were practically aching underneath him. “Iris, will you marry me?”

“Barry,” Iris said so quietly, he only just heard it. For a long time, it was as if time stopped, and she just looked at him. There was something so warm and soft in her eyes, something so incredibly beautiful, that he felt like all air left his lungs. A tiny voice inside his head told him that he wanted her to look at him like that every day for the rest of his life. He wanted to make her look at the world like that. Like anything her eyes fell upon was truly beautiful. “Yes,” she replied with a big smile, and time started again.

He rose up, and cupped her face at about the same time she reached for him, and kissed her soundly. His heart felt like it was completely and utterly out of control. They stood like that for a long moment, before Iris slowly pulled away from him, still keeping him wrapped up in her arms. “I´m guessing that is why your bowling was terrible,” Iris whispered. He laughed softly.

“I technically meant to do this at the bowling alley,” he admitted quietly and definitely blushed, Iris pulled completely away from him, and looked at him with something that almost resembled disappointment.

“You did?” she asked. He nodded.

“I´m retracting my yes then,” she said in a too serious tone, and his heart stopped for a second. “That´s a way cuter story.”

“Wait,” he began with a lump in his throat. “Are you serious?”

“No,” Iris exclaimed and let out a quiet laugh. “Of course not, you nerd.”

“Oh thank god,” he exhaled, before she pressed a kiss against the edge of his mouth, which he completely ruined by grinning like an idiot. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, and Iris rested her forehead against his.

“I would say yes no matter how you asked,” she whispered quietly, and when he saw her smile he was pretty sure it could dual the sun.


End file.
